Dial A for Aunties

Pretend you don't know hotels have cameras everywhere and enjoy the read. The writing is a little rough but it's a fun story and gets better as it goes.

This was a freaking delight.

so frickin fun!! i love the suspense mixed with humor. the whole plot was pretty unexpected to me except the fact that she and nathan got back together and it gave me santa clarita diet vibes. ALSO the fact that an indonesian author is getting to much hype in the book community rn makes me feel pretty patriotic. excited for the next book :)))

A fun quick read that I truly enjoyed. I have been looking for something like the Oh so popular “One for the Money” Series by Janet Evanovich. This is not exactly that but does remind me a bit of that style of writing. Something that needs to be solved along with quirky family dynamics and maybe a touch of light romcom. Enjoyable from page to page. Good book for fun while learning a bit about a culture you may know very little about too.

This is a new favourite, I loved it SO MUCH

The premise of this book is so much fun. A young woman accidentally murders her blind date and then her aunties come to the rescue to get rid of the body. In the meantime, the young woman's college sweetheart appears and things get even more complicated. What a romp!

Meddy is a photographer in a catering business with her mom and her aunties. After her mom lines up a blind date for her on a dating app, Meddy finds herself in a nightmare experience that ends with the accidental death of her date. In a panic, she puts the body in the trunk and runs to her family for help. In addition to the task of getting rid of a body, the family is catering a very important wedding. Meddy runs into Nathan, her college love, who runs the hotel at which the wedding is taking place. Shenanigans ensue.

Meddy, her mom, and her aunts are highly entertaining characters. They bicker and say inappropriate things in situations, but the love and loyalty between them is heartwarming. Their adventures in disposing of a body become a bit farcical as the story progresses, but the reading experience is still quite enjoyable.

Personally, I found that the story got a little too ridiculous in the second half of the book. There was just a bit too much going on, and all of it was highly unbelievable. Hence the three star rating.

I honestly don't know how to rate this or what genre to shelf this at. This was A LOT. You have to suspend your disbelief a lot with this one but if you do it's very very fast paced and enjoyable. It's kinda what I need right now. Over the top high jinks and funny. Necessary for this time in my life and my current crappy attention span.

The right amount of chaos

it was so cute!! and funny! i loved it. there were a couple things i didn't like - nathan seemed too perfect, maureen was weirdly flippant and casual when she was holding the aunties hostage, her entire plan to prevent jacqueline from marrying was pretty bonkers, and i'm not totally sure how i feel about the main characters completely getting away with literal murder........but it's clear that this is meant to be a light hearted read, and i loved meddy & her family's relationships with each other. it had me really sappy at points (the epilogue ♥!) can't wait to see the movie!

“Glad bags will hold his cut up body just fine”

“I can't believe my aunts' rivalry with each other is jeopardizing us getting away with murder.”

Welcome to this dark, hilarious mash-up of Weekend at Bernie's, Crazy Rich Asians, and maybe a little Arsenic and Old Lace, in which our heroine Meddy Chan's very relatable desire to gain some independence from her well-meaning but overbearing mother and Aunties is combined with their macabre efforts to hide and/or dispose of the body of the guy she accidentally killed. All of this as they are coordinating the Indo-Chinese wedding of the century, which is taking place at a luxury hotel owned by the heroine's one true love who she walked away from five years ago.

Jesse Q. Sutanto does an amazing job of balancing multiple moving parts and plot twists, while managing genuine emotion around Meddy's complex relationship with her distaff family members (the love story, however, is mostly inert due to a perfectly boring hero). Each of the Aunties get their chance to shine, and they inspire as much admiration as they do laughs. I am not surprised that the book is already been optioned as a Netflix film; its combination of farce, nonstop action, romance and a touch of violence should be a perfect match for the medium.

Highly recommended, and perfect summer beach reading.

(Traditional Romance + Excessively Quirky Cozy) * Asian Aunties = Hilarious, fun, and happy read.

I will say that Meddy is not a self-assured strong person at the beginning. She grows and becomes more self-assured. There is romance and hurdles to overcome, like a traditional romance. There is a dead body and quirky side characters, like cozy mysteries. And it settles you down into a huge Asian wedding with so much family. It is so wonderful. I read it in one day.

This was great! I LOVED all of the aunties and their personalities. I did get stressed from a sort of “oh no I'm afraid you're going to get caught for murder even though it was an accident!!” feeling.